EU: Cheaper Community trade marks

From 1 May 2009 the registration of a Community trade mark becomes cheaper. Basically this happens by setting the registration fee for an application at zero euros.


OHIM, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs), based in Alicante (Spain) has not only covered its costs, but has built up substantial cash reserves.


The time has come to adjust the fees to the real costs of OHIM. This will benefit businesses registering Community-wide trade marks.

The move has been brewing for a long time, but the official confirmation comes only today, in the form of Commission Regulation (EC) No 355/2009 of 31 March 2009 amending Regulation (EC) No 2869/95 on the fees payable to the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) and Regulation (EC) No 2868/95 implementing Council Regulation (EC) No 40/94 on the Community trade mark, published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) 30.4.2009 L 109/3.




Ralf Grahn

Community Trade Mark Regulation

The Community trade mark Regulation has been recast in a codified version, published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) 24.3.2009 L 78/1. Officially, this text with EEA relevance is called:

Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 of 26 February 2009 on the Community trade mark (codified version).

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Under the current Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC), there is no specific legal base for intellectual property rights, so the Regulation is based on the so called flexibility clause, Article 308 TEC with its requirement of unanimity.

The Treaty of Lisbon would improve matters by enabling the European Union to create European intellectual property rights in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, with the exception of language arrangements still needing Council unanimity (Article 118 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union; TFEU).


Ralf Grahn